Board of Education — June 13, 2023

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Sorry about that. I forgot to say the time. We started at 7.05. Okay, please note for the minutes that the following board members are present. Jim O'Neill, Alex Vara, Michelle Renler, and Melissa Yalikintero. Per the Ralph M. Brown Act, AB 2449, up to two members of a five-member board can attend the meeting via teleconference under certain conditions, with the majority of the board participating from a single location open to the public. Board member Hollihan will be joining us via Zoom due to a need related to a physical disability. And we're going to move on to the approval of the minutes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of April 25th, 2023 Board of Education regular meeting, April 27th, 2023 Board of Education special board meeting slash workshop, May 6th, Board of Education special board meeting slash workshop, May 9th, Board of Education special board meeting slash workshop, May 9th, 2023 Board of Education regular meeting, and May 16th, 2023 special board meeting workshop.

So moved.

Second. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Did we hear from Patty?

Patty? Aye. Aye. There we go. All right, chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to public participation, this section of the agenda is meant for any member of the public to address the board on any agenda item listed tonight. Okay, up first I'm going to go ahead and say the first name and then I'll list off the second name just so that person knows that they're up next. First up we have Rebecca Acosta followed by Deborah Anderson. Are they outside? Rebecca Acosta and Deborah Anderson. Rebecca?

Deborah Anderson. Okay. She's here, is she? No, go ahead. Okay, all right, okay. My name is Deborah Anderson, and I am a paraprofessional. And I understand that we are expecting a decrease in pay because, I don't know why, but I'm asking the board not to do it. There's a lot of families who are suffering right now. And this is not a good time to decrease our pay. If anything, increase it. And I'm talking about the steps. Increase the steps. Don't decrease them. Because the economy is really bad right now. And a lot of people are hurting and suffering. For me, for an example, I recently lost my home. And right now, my husband and I, we're just trying to make a living and make do. So I'm asking you that you not decrease the steps for the paraprofessionals. If anything, keep it the same or increase it. We work very hard. We're the ones that build a foundation for All of our students, okay, we care about them. We built the foundation. So because we're the ones that stand on solid ground helping all of our children that we work with, I'm asking you not to decrease the steps. If you're going to do anything, help us. We haven't got a pay increase with the economy the way that it is. If anything, increase those steps and help the people who are helping our children. Thank you.

Thank you. Did Rebecca Acosta make it in? Okay, we're going to move on. Up next we have Joseph Remillet, followed by Olga Romero.

OK, all good? Can I go? All right, I'm Joseph Remillet. I'm here in support of our paras as well. My wife and I are parents to a special needs student. And we can honestly say that paras have dramatically impacted our son's school experience in positive and negative ways. The negative ways, we feel like, are a result of paras being underpaid, under-trained, and oftentimes neglected by our district left to just cover way too much ground. And it's presented itself in negative ways, at least for our family. And we know others because we talk to people in the community. These people are the unsung heroes of our children's classroom. The fact that we're even considering dropping their pay is frankly embarrassing for families that deal with them on a day-to-day basis. The parents should be the absolute last group of people that are affected by any cuts. They're the first line of defense in our classrooms. This decision will cause our district to lose great employees to other districts, and our kids will suffer. Sometimes I wonder if our son didn't have a dedicated para, would he learn anything in school that day? Would he come home safe? These are the things that kind of keep me up at night on this topic. There's a certain rhythm that our son has with basic communication that not everyone understands, that his para picks up on. She knows his cues. She understands what will get him to learn. And sometimes even the teacher doesn't understand those cues. Parents keep our kids focused. They learn their tendencies and their special talents. And we feel like they are the reason why oftentimes they get the most out of their school days. We watch this district spend money, oftentimes wildly, on other initiatives. So that is why it's a bit embarrassing to be standing here on this evening talking about this topic and advocating for our paras. But if we allow these salary cuts, we will inevitably have a mass exodus of paraprofessionals at our USD, and the liabilities will continue to stack up. And we don't want to feel like our kids are looked at as only numbers in this district. That's all I have.

Thank you. Up next we have Olga Romero and followed by Regina Fraser.

Good evening, board members. My name is Olga Romero. I am the parent of a student currently enrolled in Redlands Unified. She attends a class. I am here today to speak to you board members to please consider giving our paras pay increases. I'm not coming to you as a para myself. I'm coming to you as a parent. My daughter has needed a para for the last six years. And I can honestly say that without a para, my daughter would not be able to attend school. We cannot lose paras due to low pay wages. Our paras are crucial part of our kids' education. They are there to comfort our children. They help them socialize. They help them with behaviors. They help our kids stay safe in the classroom as well as campus. If we lose some of these paras, if we lose these one-on-ones, are Redlands Unified ready to hire nurses to help our children go to the restroom? Who will help our children during lunch? How will our children stay safe? The whole school year, I attended these board meetings, and I kept saying, we need more funding for special education. I come month after month asking for some kind of funding for special education, and I have as of yet to see any of you board members even contact me or me see that you guys actually take what I say into consideration. However, today I come here. humbly asking to please, we cannot afford to lose our paras. And I know I said this in the past, but as board members, you should really go into these classrooms and not spend five minutes. Spend a whole day there. See what our paras do. See what our paras actually do with these kids. The teacher has 10 to 15 children, a lot of them with behaviors or medical needs. A lot of these children have disabilities. There's no way a teacher can tend to 10, 12, 15 students at once. It's not the teacher's fault. That's just the way it is. And our parents are crucial in the classroom. It's embarrassing that we're even here today. Our parents should be held to an even higher standard. And I know the money is there. The money is there. You have the money. The funding is there. But you choose to spend it on regular ed kids. You are literally leaving our special education kids behind. It's not fair. And it's time to really start putting attention to our special education classes. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Morales. Up next, we have Regina Frazier, followed by Dana Brown.

Good evening, board. My name is Regina Fraser, and I am a parent of a special education child, a volunteer, and a substitute paraprofessional for this district. I'm here to strongly urge you to consider reinstating that step increase for the paras. To remain competitive among the rest of the districts, which I personally know several paras that are leaving this district because of the pay, we need to increase this pay. It's very important. Paraprofessionals are the backbone of special education. They work in special education classes and in gen ed classes. The paras in the classroom are experts in behavior support. Most teachers, including special ed teachers, do not have the experience with behavior strategies for students with special needs. This year I worked in a kindergarten special day class. I've experienced firsthand the work of paraprofessionals as their colleagues and as a parent. Every day in this class, there were aggressive behaviors, biting, hitting, kicking, headbutting. Paras don't take these behaviors personally. They calmly handle and help the child to come down to a baseline calm. This happens all day long. It is physically and mentally taxing. Paras are handling all these behaviors while the teacher continues their lesson for the rest of the children in the class. Children in these classes also run out of the classroom to escape. Every day that I worked in this class, I got my cardio in and chased and caught children before they could reach the outer gates. I have been hit, kicked, and head-butted. I have put my body between kids and other objects or the ground to keep them from getting hurt. And I am just a sub. I encourage each of you to come and experience a day in their shoes. Please put on your tennis shoes and your long sleeves. Plan to get your exercise and to come home with bumps and bruises. Remember when the day is done how much you would be paid for that job. Like I said, I'm also the parent of a special education student. She has a one-to-one in a gen ed classroom. Without her para, she wouldn't be able to be there. The gen ed teachers do not have the training to handle the behaviors my child has. She works with my child daily to improve her behaviors, to help her with social interactions, and to help her academics. She's her teacher and her mother at school. The only reason she does not leave this district is the love that she has for my child, because she works a second job to make ends meet. And that job could pay a lot more if she were to dedicate herself solely to that. The people that work in these jobs truly love these children and the district needs to respect the work that is done. Without paras, this whole system will crumble, especially now that inclusion is a priority. I highly recommend that you consider restoring their pay.

Thank you. Up next we have Dana Brown followed by Jasmina Lemus.

Hello, my name is Dana Brown. I'm an RC para at Victoria Elementary. That means preschool, special education, and I am reading a statement from anonymous. Why are we the ones fighting? Where is the support from our district? The district where we prevent kids from eloping. We get kicked, punched, pinched, spat at, go home with bruises, yet we return the next day as if nothing happened. It's not the student's fault. We're here to support the students so they can have a more independent life. Why are we the ones paying for it? Why are we the ones getting second, maybe even third jobs to afford food, on the table, medical insurance, a roof over our head? We act as voices for the kids when they don't have a way to speak yet. We're there for the students even when they're screaming at us. We're there for the students even when they're kicking us. We're there for the students even when they're punching us. We're there for the students when they're threatening us. Yet we're the ones that have to fight for a pay, a pay that is less than other districts. A pay where we're the mediators in classrooms, we're the middleman for teachers and other services. We shouldn't need to be mediator. We shouldn't need to fight for what is fair. Why should I, the person who is seven months pregnant and fell while blocking a kid from eloping, be the one fighting for a less than equal pay? Why should I share my recommendations for the classroom or a student when they will be ignored or even treated as a mere suggestion because I'm quote unquote only a para? Yes, the turnover rate is high for special services, especially special education. Why should I, after working for five years at the district, continue working here when the support for paraprofessional doesn't happen? Until it's too late. Why are they fighting for us? Where is their outrage that we're being treated like fast food employees? Some fast food employees start off at a higher pay than paras. Why are we often the forgotten ones until we're needed? The strategies we recommend, the intervention we help input, and it isn't followed through, and when the kid begins to escalate, PCM is needed. Then we're called in to handle the situation, to handle the issue. The support should have been present since the beginning. We shouldn't wait for the end of the year to have this discussion. Half of us may not be here next year because of this. This only supports the revolving cycle of the high turnover rate. Either support and pay those who are fighting to stay here or lose those who have the experience with these kiddos and have the passion to stay. Why should we feel like we're not good enough for our jobs even when we're not getting paid fairly compared to other districts? It's exhausting. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, we have Jasmina Lemus, and followed by Jose Esther Atil, the sixth.

Good evening, my name is Jasmina and I will be reading an anonymous letter. I am a paraprofessional at Redlands High School. I became a paraprofessional nine years ago. My career started in elementary school. I have always adored my job. Working with students has been rewarding and inspiring. My coworkers are wonderful. As much as I love my job, I also must work two other jobs to be able to afford to live. I have a master's in psychology and even that has not got me the opportunity to hold one job position. I acquired my real estate license two years ago to bring in another form of income. I work weekends and sustain a life where I can put a roof over my head and buy food for me and my rescue dog. I am single and being a paraprofessional is not a living wage. As the real estate market slowed, I took a job as a property manager to again supplement my income. As I said, I enjoy my job as a paraprofessional, yet it is very difficult to give all of my students when I have worked seven days a week and evenings. I may be forced to look for employment that will pay a living wage. The cost of living has increased to the point where every dollar counts. Please take into consideration the dedication and hard work provided by paraprofessionals. We all deserve to only have one job. I would like to add to that that I myself am a para and I am also will be affected by this. I am now forced to look for a second job. Nobody wants to do that. On top of that, I would like to ask why are we hiring outside companies when at the end of the day you're only giving us more work. We have to step in for them. it's it's not um okay i'm i'm very upset over this because i'm i'm being very affected by this and if unfortunately something else does the opportunity shows i will be forced to leave and i don't want that i love what i do i love these kids and i want to continue supporting but this is not okay thank you

Thank you. Sorry, it's Jose Ethan Hunt, Atil the Sixth. Sorry about that. Couldn't read the writing. Up next after Jose is Daniel Ambries.

So I'm Ethan Atil. I work at Citrus Valley High School. Hello, Board of the Redlands Unified School District. I speak on behalf of me and my peers when I say that this reduction of our pay comes to some of us as a surprise and to many of us with disappointment, frustration, and genuine concern. For those of us newer to the district, we were not made aware of the fact that the pay was only a temporary measure to entice people to become paraprofessional aides. But regardless of knowing, even those who are aware of the fact are looking towards challenging times for the upcoming years if this alteration follows through. Allow me to give you some context from my personal experience. I have my life planned out to a T financially. I know how much I can afford to spend on gas and groceries every month to avoid going into the red, accounting for bills and expected expenses. And if life were as simple as those expected expenses, I would be fine with room to spare, but life is hardly ever expected. There's surprise car payments, home repairs, vet and medical, and childcare, just to name a few. Last month, for instance, I had to accept the fact that I had to eat ramen for dinner for a week because I had to put down my childhood dog. Those are the types of decisions we already have to make. And now you're asking us to tighten our belts further. And I know this decision doesn't come because you don't need us. None, absolutely none of our classrooms could run without us. And we do all that we can to make sure that these days go by as seamlessly as possible as understaffed as we already are. Between monitoring behaviors and intervening, goal work, lifting bodies and toileting, cleaning up our classrooms of general debris and bodily matter alike, and ensuring the enrichment of the lives of our students at their schools. we've come to understand just how necessary we are. And I know various instances where us parents can spend more time with each kid individually than our own teachers can, which in turn allow us to help our teachers develop future IEPs, monitor their behavior quicker and more accurately, and truly ensure their enrichment and enjoyment at school. And through all the dirty typers and scratches and aching backs, days full of stubbornness and refusal to cooperate in classroom activities and goal work, Many of us thoroughly love our jobs and appreciate our kids. We're not asking for a lot. We're not asking to be more than some of the lowest paid workers in the district. What we're asking is that we don't get put further down. This decision a year ago to increase wages was made to entice people to join as paras at the Redlands Unified School District. We ask you now that you show that you want us to stay. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next we have Daniel Ambrose and followed by Brenda Bartlett.

Hi, good evening. First, I would like to thank the board for its time. I've had the opportunity to speak to the board on a handful of occasions, and I'm truly grateful for the collaborative relationship we often share. Sadly, I must give you some much needed perspective on this situation with the Paris pay. I'm a one-on-one professional paraprofessional at Smiley, and I have the privilege to work with many sites and with many teachers over my career at the district. I've had the chance to observe what works and what doesn't. And what we have right now is a situation that is not going to work. The MOU that was signed earlier this year, it's simply a bad plan. It has no longevity. I personally work two jobs. I have an 11 year old and a one year old daughter. I have to take time away from my family to simply make ends meet. That is unacceptable. It is embarrassing that I cannot just have one job. I would love for the board members to come and observe what we do on a day-to-day basis. I welcome you with open arms to come see the trials and tribulations that we must go through in our day-to-day. I see some of my smiley paras here right now. I would love for you to see, because I'm not a great para. They are amazing. And I would love for you to see how hard they work and all of the things that they have to deal with. And then go punch another clock. just to make ends meet. This year, on my own, I split a contract between first and fifth grade. And I don't know if you have been in a first and fifth grade. They're way different speeds. And to do that on a day-to-day basis and shift those gears, it is stressful. It is different strategies. It is an entirely different ballgame when you drop down to that first grade. And I split that contract because I care about this community. I know that with my skills and with my experience, I could go to any district in the IE. And I could get paid more than I get paid here. But what makes Redlands special is our community that we have built. And I do not turn my back on this community because it didn't turn its back on me when I went to school here. And all we are asking for is a living wage. It is not to go buy a second house. It is not to go put a Ferrari in the garage. It's just to live. And with inclusion coming up next year, you guys want a Ferrari and you're paying for a Pinto. The responsibilities we're going to have going into this inclusion are so tantamount to co-teaching. If you want us to co-teach, great, we'll do it. We'll step up and we'll handle it just like we did during COVID, just like we did this year coming back from COVID. We'll do it. You got to pay us. You have to pay us a living wage. That is all we are asking. I thank you for your time and I look forward to this collaborative effort going forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next we have Brenda Bartlett followed by Cindy Van Horn.

Was it Brenda Bartlett? Brenda Bartlett, I thought I heard her say Brenda Bartlett.

I'm sorry. I have Brenda Bartlett. That's it, yeah. Yeah.

I'm Brenda Bartlett. I'm from Citrus Valley, paraprofessional too. After hearing all that, I'm just beside myself because I have a disabled son myself. And his income and my income barely make it with the rent. If that happens, it's going to leave me homeless. It's going to leave my son homeless. And I love my job. I just want to show you also, too, and without, sorry for being emotional, because I love my job. But this year, I had a situation where there was a gen ed teacher, art class teacher, that did not want to deal with another mild-mod child that had lots of problems. The special ed teacher and the gen ed teacher were at it. But guess who stepped up? Me. Little old me, Para, took on not only my one-on-one, but another one-on-one because I knew him from last year. Where was anybody else to step in to help me or to give since we're already lacking in paras and teachers? Where was that for me to get the support to help him? But I was taking away from my one-on-one taking care of two children in one class. But that's my heart. That's my job. But I'm just asking, just like Jose said, we just want to live. That's it. Just want to live. I love my job. I don't want to work for another job. If I have to, I will, but it won't be as happy because those kids really, we get them. We understand where other people won't get their needs. My student can say a word to me, and I know exactly what she's saying with her silver palsy. I know what she's saying. I know what she's thinking and how her grades. She's getting all A's and a B. Why? Because I put faith in her. I encourage her. Nobody's going to do that for her, but me and anybody from the outside is not going to know her. So please, just think about us as little people. We do a lot there in school. We do. We care. We love our jobs. We just need to be able to afford to live to keep it. And I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Cindy Van Horn. I've just finished my 10th year as a paraprofessional, and I work with the Inspire Music program. Most of you know that I like to bring a little levity into difficult situations. So that being said... From the district office in Redlands, California, I'd like to give you the top ten list of things paraprofessionals do to make ends meet while supporting the district's most at-risk population. Number ten, gathering recycling from neighborhood garbage cans. Number nine, live with their parents. Number eight, live with their children. Number seven, eat leftover school lunches. Number six, downgrade their health insurance. Number five, sell their plasma. Number four, work a second job. Number three, work a third job. Number two, cry, pray, repeat. And the number one thing paraprofessionals do to make ends meet while supporting the district's most at-risk population is leave the classroom and take a district typing job, which actually pays a living wage. It's not very funny, is it? I've done all of those things except for leave and sell my plasma because I can't because I only have one kidney. And no, I didn't sell it. The temporary MOU that just expired on June 8th was a significant step in the right direction for paraprofessionals and service workers. The change in classification made us feel seen and more respected as professionals. And the pay raise helped many of us to stop worrying so much and actually have a few dollars of breathing room. Imagine that. I respectfully call on the Board of Education to support your most at-risk employees by reinstating the change of classification and the pay raise. We can do better. I thank you very much for your attention to this very serious, serious matter. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, I'm sorry for the late notice, Cheryl L. Reedhammer, followed by Olga Ramirez.

I'm Cheryl Reed-Hammer, and I've been in Redlands Unified School District with my children, raising them since 2001. And at that time, the special ed district was controlled by San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Since you guys brought back the students in those years since, I realize that you probably didn't expect the extra expenses that are being required for our special ed kids, but they are ours. They are our special kids, and I have had the pleasure of working for the county, and then now return back to working for the district as a city. with these students. I left because I did need to take another job somewhere else because I was not getting benefits when I was working before with only the six hours. So I went and worked other districts for eight hours as a substitute, was paid much more for that, but it was eight hours and required a lot more driving to and from those locations. So when I had the opportunity to come back to be a one-on-one for the district, I was going to be it before COVID, and then had to wait for after COVID to actually sign the contract, unfortunately. But I loved Redlands Unified and have enjoyed raising my kids here. At one point, it was asked to come up with a suggestion for this. With the inclusion program, we're moving our mild-mod children into these classrooms. They are going to be requiring us as paras to go into these classrooms, and my understanding is that there may be the four to six students, possibly, depending on the ratio of the classroom structure. We as paras have to, unfortunately, take these children to the bathroom and are then one-on-one with the child, which, of course, is why we have these legal situations with other situations with one-on-one staff that are legal issues that we're still dealing with. So we are very concerned about that consideration that we may be neglecting the three or others that are still in the classroom with their behaviors while we are attending to a one-on-one, options being that we would send them to the nurse. And as that has been brought up, are we going to be paying the nurses to deal with these behaviors, or are we still going to need to be there to support the nurses as they're helping our gen ed kids? So my suggestion going back to it as a suggestion would be that San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools originally had a lot of these children. If we do have these severe children, let us focus in on keeping our mild, moderate inclusion and keep them finances and in Redlands safe. and maybe considering sending these kids back to San Bernardino County Superintendent Schools, thus taking away these second agencies with their two aides to one child, and taking the funds away from us that love Redlands Unified School District and the students here that have come back to you since 2001. I love Redlands Unified School District, and I'm ashamed that this is happening right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final speaker of agenda items is Olga Ramirez. Okay, and I'll do one last call for Rebecca Acosta.

Hello, board and community. My name is Rebecca Acosta, and I'm coming to you today as a parent of a child in special education and a former special education teacher. Paraprofessionals are the brick that makes the house, and that can be hard for the roof to see, but I am here to remind you. Special education continues to suffer year after year from lack of funding despite bringing in so much federal funds. And this is just another symptom of a larger systemic enablers problem. Focusing our resources only on the general education students that we can show off and parade. Our district has taken a huge step forward in moving towards inclusion. Inclusion is going to need to be built from the ground up and paraprofessionals are the first line in this massive undertaking. It makes absolutely no sense that in such a crucial time, we are cutting the wages of the most foundational members of our team. How do we as an institution move forward in our endeavor without paraprofessionals? Please, I implore you to reconsider the wage cuts and focus on your foundation.

Okay, I'll do one last call for Olga Ramirez. Okay. Now on to our public hearings. Public hearing on the initial proposal of the Redlands Teacher's Association RTA to the Board of Education for the 2023-2024 negotiations. The public hearing is now open. Is there anyone who would like to comment? Okay, this hearing is now closed. Public hearing on the initial proposal of the Residence Education Support Professionals Association, RESPA, to the Board of Education for the 2023-2024 negotiations. The public hearing is now open. Is there anyone who would like to comment? Okay, this hearing is now closed. Moving on to presentations, we are going to start with the fun stuff by recognizing some of our talented students. Let's begin with Rev. Mr. Krotz. Can you come up to the podium and start us off? Thank you.

Good evening, board and cabinet and guests and everybody here. It is kind of one of these weird nights here for me that we get to honor a student. Well, we get to honor a student. We like to honor students all the time. But this is for something pretty unique from our perspective as a school at Rev. We've had some success in our athletic programs over the years in various different departments. But to have an individual student and a triple jump, by the way, triple jump. Not the most popular sport in the world, not the one that a lot of kids come out for and try to try out for, I knew that. But they go to state, well they go to, they win all the CIF, they didn't win CIF, they actually took second and all that kind of stuff, but they go to state. And through that competition, this student jumped 48 feet, what was it, four I think, I think is what it was, three? 48 feet three. And went into the finals in state, ranked seventh, and came out on top. Yes. Pretty big deal that we're going to get to add a gold flag into our gym for our state champion senior going to Cal on a scholarship for track. And his academics, by the way, because he's a 4.0 GPA, too. But I want to honor tonight Jeremiah Bolanos.

Come on, man.

You got this.

First off, I want to thank the board for inviting me here to have the opportunity to get this amazing recognition. And I just want to thank my parents and my coaches because I would have never been here without them. I wouldn't be going to Berkeley. I wouldn't have this 4.0 GPA if they didn't push me. So I just want to thank everybody and have a good day.

You didn't like the trip? That form was in Tennessee. One more. One, two.

All right, up next we have Kate Van Leuven from Redlands High School.

Good evening. I would probably do an injustice if I was going to tell you about our esports team. So I am going to hand the mic over for just a moment to our amazing esports coaches, Nicholas Klausner and Janan Elias, so we can tell you a little bit about our amazing team.

Hey, how's everybody doing tonight? We're here because we had just started eSports. It's a growing accompaniment for the young, and it's a competitive scene, and it's electronic video games in a lot of different varieties. And we just started this year at RHS, and we had such a wonderful time creating our team. They play the eSport, the video game, Valorant, and they play it really well. This fall, we competed in the National League, which had 180 teams on the Western Conference, and we got second, which netted us an invitation to a national tournament in Kansas City. At this national tournament, there were only eight teams invited. And we went in as a huge underdog. And I'm so proud of all my guys. They played so well. They made bonds. They made so many scholarship opportunities. And they ended second place in the whole entire nation. This all came from a league that had essentially, because we had 180 in ours, and about the same amount in each other region. So a league of 800 different schools competing, and we're second in the nation this year, our first year. And I really couldn't be prouder. They did such a wonderful job. They're all excellent students. Never had to worry about any grade checks. And I'd just love to welcome them all up here and give them some recognition.

Before we bring these three amazing, well, come on up. But before we give them their certificates, I would also like to share that our two coaches, Janann Elias and Nicholas Klausner, were honored by San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools for excellence in esports coaching in their first year. Congratulations. First, I would like to introduce the, oh, I see you guys got out of order. All right, Wyden, Juden, Pytel, we have first. Congratulations, Wyatt. Brian Grinnon. And last but not least, Jimmy Buey. Congratulations. We do have three other members who were unable to join us this evening, but we are very proud of all of them.

Alrighty, one, two, three.

probably gonna leave all right before you guys leave before the eSports people leave I want you to know that I got a text from one of our cabinet members that you were on the streaming you know and it's all I My son did a lot of gaming, and so I was automatically drawn to it. And I want to tell you that I watched the entire thing, and it's been a long time since I was yelling at the computer and getting totally involved. I was rooting for you guys all the way, and you would kind of edge up. They had an early lead, and you'd edge up, and then you'd fall away a little bit, and then you'd edge up again. I was like, come on, Terriers. I was really, kill those guys, you know. And it's very exciting to see. And I know all of us are very proud to hear your name there. The broadcasters, I think they were biased a little bit, actually. Yeah, oh, yeah. But that being said, it was exciting to watch and well done. Just well done. You represented us great. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mrs. Van Leeuwen and the eSports team. Up next, we'll have Ms. Hubbard come up and help us recognize our LCAP committee members.

Good evening, board president, board members, superintendent, cabinet, and distinguished guests. Later this evening, you'll be considering the drafted 23-24 local control accountability plan for adoption. This plan couldn't have happened, couldn't have been created without the work of this year's LCAP advisory committee. It's my honor now to recognize the contributions of this committee who volunteered many hours of their time this year. Collectively, we reviewed the programs and services of the LCAP and we looked closely at the data related to the plan. This committee has definitely made my job easier and much more enjoyable. as they have been readily engaged in meaningful discourse, asked insightful questions, and generated ideas and strategies all designed to support our students. The committee is comprised of parents, community members, classified staff, certificated staff, members of management, all representing the diverse population of Redlands Unified School District students. More than half of our committee members this year are new to the committee, which means that we'll have the honor of them serving again next year, and I look forward to that opportunity. My words would not be sufficient to truly express my gratitude, but I'd like to bring our committee up now so we can publicly offer our thanks for the job well done. So we'll start with the parent and community representatives. So parent and community representatives, you can come over. Our parent and community representatives on the committee are Sarah Benilla, Annette Brown, Lindsay Cortez, Portia Henderson, Jen Kim, Stephanie Marillo, Rebecca Pacheco-Hidalgo, Aretha Pacpaham, Singrid Sismundo, Diana Uribe, Dominic Woods Sr., Jennifer Brooksby, Tarun Jaiswal, Michelle Muse, Jennifer Moore, Stephanie Pallad, and Jeanette Tespai. So we have a couple of the community members with us today.

Thank you.

The staff.

Susan Abt.

Emile Radoy, Shannon Rooney, Rosalba Schessler, Lisa Sigmund, Amber Underwood, Candy Blanco, Peter Castellanos, Gladys Kershaw, Michelle Moore Padilla, Jennifer Petty, Sony Stewart, Yvonne Tepete, Wendy Kress, Stephanie Locke, David Monaco, Molly O'Day, Ashley Palmer, and Ben Uribe.

Okay, everyone, if you guys have some questions for me, I'm ready. One, two, three.

Okay, Dr. Wagner, would you like to come into the podium and recognize our 25 teachers who earned the supplementary authorization in computer science?

Thank you, and good evening again, President Ayala-Cantero, members of the board, superintendent, cabinet, and our distinguished guests tonight. We're here tonight to celebrate RUSD educators who have earned a supplementary authorization in computer science through a district-sponsored program. In the summer of 2022, Redlands USD engaged in a partnership with University of California Riverside and the University of California at Davis to provide an opportunity for RUSD teachers to earn their supplementary authorization in computer science. 32 educators were enrolled in computer science college coursework offered by the University of California, Davis, leading to their supplementary authorization in computer science. 25 of those teachers completed four courses for 15 units in computer science and will receive their credential through the University of California, Riverside. Four more of those teachers are scheduled to continue that coursework in July, and another six of those are going to go and complete a fifth course, which will allow them to complete their authorization in computer science throughout the high school level coursework as well. So tonight, we want to bring up those individuals who are here tonight, and we will let you know. I will call off their names, but come on up if you're here. You know who you are, and your picture's up there. We have Nelly Aboites, Kaitlin Arakawa, sorry, Josh Barner, Michelle Senter, Sarah Aguera, John Harbert, Albert Holman, Roland Hosch, Madeline Houston, Adam Johnson, Allison Malam, Andrew Mitchell, Kari Morgan, Robin O'Brien, Vitaly Orlov, Amber Rosales, Noah Rosen, Laura Shea, Jasmine Smith, Ryan Stewart, Lydia Tekin, Mary Ann Ufkes, Corey Elgin, Miranda Leonard and Deepika Srivastava. Those are our individuals who have done this work. Come on up.

Everyone here, one, two, three. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Dr. Wagner. Mr. Quartz, would you like to come and talk to us about the district's local indicators for the 2022-2023 school year?

Good evening, board members, cabinet, and community members. Yes, this is my annual report. It's required by the state of California to let the board members know and the community members know an update on our local indicators. Just a quick explanation of what local indicators are. When the California School Dashboard came out in 2017, the whole point of the dashboard was to report on the many facets of a school district. Because in the past, it used to really just be academics. So if you think of a dashboard, you see all kinds of gauges that explain everything happening with your vehicle. So that's true about local indicators. If you think about what's reported in the dashboard, some things are very clear, such as test scores, the number of students suspended, students chronically absent. That's pretty easy to report because those are raw numbers and they're reported to the state. However, some things are harder to explain. So we have to actually do surveys and ask our people what they think. So those are local indicators. The things that come out for local indicators are basic services, implementation of state academic standards, parent engagement and school climate. Those are great surveys that go out. And access to broad course of study. Now, there is a difference between qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative is just numbers, raw numbers. And again, those are test scores, the number of students suspended, and chronically absentee. Qualitative is perception data. That's when you actually ask people what they think. So that's what comes out in local indicators. Now, the bar or criteria for us passing a local indicator, it's not a met or nearly met type of bar. Basically, for us to satisfy the state requirements for local indicators, number one, we need to actually measure. We need to do the survey. we need to report this to the board, which is what we're doing now. And we also need to upload the report on time to the state. So we're going to do all that. We're reporting to the board today, and we'll be uploading this to the state. So after we do this, all of the categories will show up as met on the California school dashboard. So our first category. I should have brought my glasses, so I'm going to have to look at my piece of paper here. This one is basic services. And when you look at basic services, the first category is the number and percentages of mis-assigned teachers for EL. And we have no mis-assigned teachers, which means all of them are properly credentialed for EL. The number and percentage of students without access to their own copies of standards aligned instructional materials, so that's like the Williams Act, we have zero. So we're in full compliance of that. And the number of identified instances where facilities do not meet the good repair standard, that is zero as well. So for the first category, priority one, basic services, that requirement is met. The second one is a survey that we actually provide to all of our administrators. This is the implementation of state standards. So basically what this says is it's rating the local education agency's progress in providing professional learning for teaching to the recently adopted academic standards and or curriculum framework as identified below. We give this every year. And our ELA and math are always showing high implementation. You can see right here, 97.1% implementation for ELA. Now history and social science, this one has been increasing every year because it was adopted several years back. And each year since the adoption, the full implementation has been going up. So it's 70.1% this year. Again, math has been in full implementation for several years because that adoption has been going on for quite a while. 97.1. And NGSS, also a newer adoption. That's 63%, 0.1% full implementation and growing as we become more experienced and trained in the materials. So as you will see on the California state dashboard that will come out in the fall, it's going to show up as met. Parent engagement. This is one that goes out to the parents, actually, in a Kelvin survey. We've been doing Kelvin for, I believe, three years now. So this is a parent engagement survey, and it surveys the parents several times throughout the school year to give their perception on the school's efforts to engage parents. So you'll see, and the board members have a packet, and community members are invited to grab a packet from the back. These are ranked in order. So the numbers that you'll see on this slide, the first three are the top three that parents are rating for parent engagement. The top one being the school uses multiple ways to communicate with families. So that's a good one that we've been working very hard on. The school keeps all families informed about important issues and events. And parents say they feel comfortable talking to someone at the school about the student's behavior. So those are the top three rated for parent perception. Your bottom three on this next slide, the bottom one being the school provides opportunities to families to develop relationships with school leaders. Teachers keep parents well informed about how their student is progressing in school. And parents have opportunities to be part of important decisions about the school through surveys and advisory groups. Now, one of your questions may be, what do we do about this data when we get it? I'll be explaining that a little bit later in the presentation. I did give you year over year data. So you'll see how we shook out by student group in 2021, 22, and 22, 23. And it's surprisingly very similar. So it's very similar. Overall grew by 1%. It's a pretty small percentage from 85 to 86 from the past year. So it's pretty steady in terms of parent perception. So that category will show up as met on the California school dashboard for local indicators. The third one is school climate. This is actually a survey that goes out to students in grades three through 12 several times throughout the school year. So this is how students are perceiving their school climate. The top three are, first, I know how to get help with homework assignments that I don't understand. So that came out number one. Number two, I feel safe on my school campus. And number three, my school clearly communicates the rules and expectations for student behavior. So those are your top three. And your bottom three, number one, students at my school treat each other with respect. Came out as the lowest in terms of student perception. My school effectively addresses teasing and or bullying. And my school rewards students for good behavior. So those are your bottom three for school climate. That's going to come out as met on the California school dashboard. The final one is broad course of study. Now here's the definition of broad course of study. A broad course of study for grades one through six shall include instruction beginning in grade one and continuing through grade six at the following areas of study. ELA, math, social science, and science, obviously, but then visual and performing arts, health, and PE. So these are areas that we're constantly working on improving and providing a broad course of study and access for all of our students. Similarly for grades 7 through 12, broad course of study shall offer courses in following areas. English, Social Sciences, Foreign Language, PE, Science, Math, VAPA, Applied Arts, and CTE. So we did another internal self-survey to see how our perception is in terms of providing a broad course of study to our students. And we broke this out by student groups. Well, the first one is overall broad course of study. Elementary, 88.9% of the internal study felt that students across the board were receiving a broad course of study in elementary school. But that drops to 62.9% in secondary, feel that students are receiving a broad course of study in secondary. So how does that shake out by student group? You can see the strengths and the weaknesses. So you can see that... On this next chart, you can see strongly disagree is blue and disagree is red. And then somewhat is sort of that yellow. So you can see the lower ones are like English learners and students with disability. English learners and students with disability are showing up for K-6 and 7 through 12. So that's something for us to really take to heart and think about. Why is the perception that English learners and students with disabilities are not receiving the same access to a broad course of study as their peers? OK. So a result of summary for this is some feel that there are limited electives for some of these students. There's a need for more remedial classes. There's a lack of choice for electives in middle school.

There's restrictive programming for special ed and EL.

Maybe just some of awareness of the classes that they can take, flexibility of student schedules, teacher qualification requirements, and just time, time and schedules. So again, that one's going to show up as met in the California school dashboard. So that's a lot of data. That's a lot of information. And we get it throughout the course of the school year. So what do we do as educational services as this data comes to us? We do several things. We analyze the results. And when we say analyze the results, we analyze it in multi-tiers of levels, by school, by grade level, by student group, by class, and so forth. We analyze our current programs. For example, LCAP, we're constantly analyzing our programs, how they're developed, the goals that we're using for the programs and so forth. We work with stakeholders to find the root cause analysis of our issues. We have a very robust professional development program. And of course, we continue to set goals for improvement each year. So with that being said, I'm going to open it up to questions for the board.

Thank you, Mr. Quartz. Does anyone have any questions?

Hi, Jamie. Thank you so much for always doing this and have it make it easy for us to understand. So you're saying that when parents and students do the Kelvin survey, when you're looking at the data, you can break it up by school?

Yes.

And by student groups? Yes. That way, too?

Yeah. So on one of the slides, you can see that we broke the parent survey up in a heat map by student group. I'm not sure which slide that was. This was the slide back here. You can see we have something called a heat map. where we were able to see all of the outcomes by student group. And it's colored where it's sort of showing a problem or an issue, where it's lower. But we can also see that by individual school and by individual question. So it's quite a robust reporting system. Thank you. Good question. Me? Mm-hm. Hi, Mr. Quartz. Mr. O'Neil.

Thanks for all the data. So that was kind of what I was thinking. Michelle asked about desegregating the data. Priority six. I don't know, it kind of alarmed me to think that half the students at a school don't think their school's addressing bullying or teasing or that their students don't treat each other with respect. So by desegregating the data, there are some schools that are doing better with this than others, correct?

Yeah, let me explain to you how we provide this data to our sites.

That's the question I wanted to ask, yes.

so this one is actually quite a complex data program that we share with them for example it's got many what we call slicers where you can select different categories so if i'm let's say craft and i would select my school and then i can actually click on the actual question so i would click on my student feels safe at the school and it's going to show me four bars students that feel extremely safe then a three, then a two, and then a one. So I might want to click on my one. So those would represent the students that are feeling extremely unsafe. And if I click on that one, it will show me the names of the students who actually said that. So that provides us as a school counselors or a school site the ability to really reach out to those students and say, hey, how can we help you? We're noticing that you're not feeling safe at the school. Additionally, we can also do the same thing by student group. So we can actually slice it by the question, the lowest response, student and student group, and then by male and female. So we can really narrow down and dig down to the actual student group that we're focusing on or names of students who are feeling that way at our school.

Okay. So you have 4,350 responses. Or is that respondents? Responses or respondents?

Respondents.

So that's respondents. Those are actual students, 4,350. Right. Do you know what percentage it is of our 3rd through 12th grade?

This is our lowest response in the three years that we've done this. Our highest was during COVID. Then last year it dropped a little bit more. And this year it dropped even more. So we've been talking about this in Ed Services to see how we could bolster that response. So yes, this is our lowest response in the three years that we've done the Kelvin survey.

Maybe a homework pass.

I do want to say that we've used different survey techniques in the past. In the past, we've done a Google form. For parents, we've done Google forms and the emails and so forth. We do believe that Kelvin is our best bet to get the highest amount of responses from our parents and students. So we definitely are talking internally about ways to really bolster those responses back up to COVID and COVID numbers.

Okay, thank you. Okay.

Any more questions?

Yes, so earlier you talked about that the dashboard normally covers attendance, suspensions, and what else were like the three main?

Oh, chronic absenteeism.

And yes, chronic absenteeism. So one of the things I want to make sure we're not doing, and it's along the same lines that Jim talked about, is making sure that our students feel safe. Because in many districts in California, and it comes down from the district office, is that they want us to lower the suspension rates and not to suspend students. I hope that our principals know that they have the full backing of the board. If a student has failed to meet the ed code requirements and is not in compliance with them, then they have all right to suspend all of the students. That's one of the dashboards that I really don't agree with, because if there is bullying, our campuses and we need to rectify it, then the principals should not feel as though their hands are being tied and try to reduce their number of suspensions. If we need to make sure that we need to keep our students safe, then our principals and assistant principals should feel comfortable to be able to suspend.

And to your point, Ms. Rivara, that sort of solidifies the value of local indicators because without a student perception, all you would see was a suspension number. But by also adding the, by forcing us to ask the kids what their perception is, it provides an additional piece of information to really dig into why these kids aren't coming to school or why these kids are getting suspended. Again, that's why we do the broader piece of local indicators.

All right, thank you, Mr. Quartz. And it's the best part of the evening, Mr. Hill, with the 2023-24 annual budget.

We talk about a lot of numbers, right? Thank you, Board President, Board, the public, and Cabinet. I'd like to thank my team to start on this budget. We had two individuals, Brian Guggesberg and Sherry Gross, who really kind of stepped up and did double duty with some of our staff this time. I also want to inform the board that we published the budget publicly on Friday. Today we were working with the county and we realized that the utilities that we paid this year were not carried into next year's budget. So knowing today that the utilities weren't carried it affects our expenditures in the outgoing budget. So the budget you have presented to you in the board packet tonight is approximately four to six million dollars off in terms of expenditures. So the slides I'll present you, when you look at that ending fund balance, you would lower that amount by about $4 million. Knowing that, I'm going to present you with a brand new budget next month. So that budget will contain those utility costs and will have transparency with you as well as the public.

Wrong one.

all right leas that's us local education agency must budget from may revision but the only thing certain is that the final budget will be different than this proposal that i'm giving you today so the governor will present his estimated budget or his proposed budget in january he comes out does something called a may revise he presented that in may the legislature came out yesterday with their proposed budget So now the legislature and the governor will make some changes and some deals before the final budget comes out at the end of the month. This budget that you see here today is based off May revise.

Oops.

The budget is built on the governor's May revision. The COLA, or the cost of living increase that the governor proposed is 8.22 for the 23-24 school year. He proposed 8.13 in January, so he did raise his cost of living increase to 8.22. He also proposed a cut of $4.3 billion to the One Time Arts Block Grant and the Instructional Materials Block Grant that they funded us with last year. So in order to afford that raise in COLA, he's proposing a cut to those two one time grants, and you'll see that in this presentation. The assumptions we made for 23-24, we have an enrollment of 19,680. That's about 97 students less than the current year. The ADA that we're proposing is 91.99%. That is our lowest ADA probably in the past 10 plus years. So students still need some students in school. Our unduplicated pupil percentage, three-year average is 68%. So that is the amount of students that will increase that supplemental concentration portions, which feed into the LCAP, which is the plan that you looked at earlier. Step and column increase. So every year, there are employees in the district who move over a step and up a column. That cost is $3.9 million. The reduction to the block grants for us is about a $16 million reduction. And negotiations for the 23-24 year are still open. For our multi-year assumptions, so I'll also present you tonight next year and the following two years. The following two years, we're predicting the implied COLA at 3.94 for 24-25, and 25-26 is a 3.29. ADA we leave flat for the next two years. We just predict it to remain the same. It generally will drop, but we just kind of budget it at the same. Step and column increase is about 1.4% in additional cost every year. STRS is no change proposed. PERS does have an increase to the contribution into PERS. We generally see about a 40% increase in our property and liability insurance, and we usually see about 5% increase in utility costs. Again, none of the multi-years include a bargained agreement. If we look at our multi-year analysis, I'm just going to kind of walk through the way this slide works. We start in the upper left where it says beginning balance of $80,488,247, that first box. That's the current year that we're in. As we move down that column, we have $366 million in revenue, that's money coming into us, with $348 million in expenses going out. That leaves us with an ending fund balance of around $95.5 million. We will carry that ending balance up to the next year, which is that 98,580. That is the second column. We have revenues at $331 million and expenditures at $353 million. This is make note, this expenditure that you see there will drop when we add next year's utilities. So that ending fund balance at the end of second column will drop by around $4 million, which then carries on to the 24-25 year. I'll focus on the bottom two numbers of the last two columns, 24-25 with a projected ending fund balance of about $66 million, and then we move into 25-26 with a projected ending balance of about $56 million. I'll explain those drops as we move into the next slide. This is what makes up that ending fund balance. On the unrestricted side, which means money that we do not have, say, strings attached, for lack of a better term, $50,000 in non-spendable amounts, about $2.2 million in revolving cash. That usually has to do with multi-year contracts that we negotiate. We move out to 16 million in committed dollars, which I'll explain in a future slide. $3 million in assigned values. The difference between committed and assigned are committed are board items that the board votes on. Assigned are items that the district sets aside. The 3% reserve for economic uncertainty is the amount we're required to hold by law in case the wheels fall off the bus. Our unassigned values, a little over around $7 million. That total is about $39 million. Restricted funds are funds that come in with strings attached. A huge portion of our restricted funds this year are those one-time art block grants. right and since they were received one time and there's projected cuts to them that restricted side will drop over the next two years because that's not continuing money to come in which is why on this last side slide you saw that ending fund bounce dropping by the amount it is is because we we have plans to use that restricted money over the next two years and that's not more money that's coming in Let's move into the assigned amounts. Again, this is items that the district sets aside to pay for certain things. Donations are money that comes in through donations into school sites with kind of rules attached to the donation. $743,000 site allocation funds, about $582,000. We move down to furniture and equipment is the amount that we backfill and we help replace furniture and equipment throughout the district like computers, desks, things like that. We set aside about $100,000 in security funds. That's to help replace and maintain our camera system. And then we have about $1 million in lottery. Lottery comes in from people spending lottery, buying lottery tickets. Ending fund balance, these are committed. These are the items that the board has made decision on and made a commitment to. We have a social studies adoption with $135,810 remaining in that commitment. We have a proposed math adoption of $3 million, a proposed English adoption of $5 million. Those are upcoming adoptions that will take place in the next few years. REV stadium phase two, you've committed $6 million towards that. We have $1.7 million remaining in innovation and technology, and we have $374,000 left in a world language adoption that we're still spending out. So a total of $16 million that you've set aside using board action. Any questions?

Start with Michelle.

I guess it's not really a question. I'm just wondering what that little, on the slide before that, the little asterisks and the little pound signs, what are those referring to?

Just some notes that I had on the slide to remind myself.

Just wondering.

Yes.

Alex, do you have anything?

Jason, just- I was wondering the governor's proposed cuts to the arts, music, and instructional materials block grants. We haven't received that money yet. Is that the new?

We have received it. Oh, we did? We've received round one, so half of the arts block grant. That was about 12 million. We haven't received the second half. The learning recovery block grant is coming in pieces. We've received a portion of that already as well.

Okay, so do you happen to know what some of the restrictions are with the use of the block grant money?

The arts block grant money is designed to fund the arts. I'm using a general statement.

No, I know, but you know how sometimes they give us block grant money, but it comes with restrictions.

The Arts Block Grant has a little caveat that says, or district need. So the Arts Block Grant is relatively loose in terms of spending. The Recovery Block Grant is specifically designed for learning recovery. So you're talking about teachers, you're talking about extending the day, extending the hours, anything that's kind of designed to bring back learning loss. So this is on top of the ELO funding that we've previously- Correct, the ELOP, which is the, that's also in the restricted funds, is about 13, 12.7 million a year. That does not have any proposed cuts to it at this point. That's funding our extended learning option plan, and we're expanding that next year.

And so, just to make sure I get this right, so we got 12 million for the arts.

We will, we have half of it already.

So we got half of it, 6 million. And then how much are we getting for the recovery?

It's approximately 30 million in total.

And that's for, is it just a one-time $30 million that we're getting, or are we getting- It comes in four chunks, but yes, it's one-time money, it comes.

Now, his proposal was to cut $16 million of those two pots, approximately half of the arts block grant, which means we wouldn't get more than about 30% of the recovery block grant. Now, the legislatures- Proposed a cut to both of those as well, but much less. So they're proposing less cuts to those block grants and then cut some restricted monies that we haven't got yet in transportation and teacher retention and teacher programs. Again, legislature and the governor will kind of duke it out behind doors before we'll see what it comes out to be. This is all based on the governor's May revision, which has two proposed cuts to those two block grants. With no proposed cuts to the other programs.

And then do we have plans for the extra funding or are you guys still developing plans on how to use it?

How we're using the one time funds? Right. We're using the one time funds to fund teachers. part of the negotiated salary last year, utilize those one-time funds in an ongoing manner. Because if we didn't use those one-time funds, we'd have to reduce staff. So we chose to increase our staff levels improving our learning outcomes using the one-time money if that makes sense yeah so we are we've spread that one-time money over a course of four years so if they were to cut any of that money it just means that we have to pull back to three year to two year to one year depending on how much they cut okay thank you do you have anything

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hill, and thank you to Brian and Sherry as well for putting that together for us. We have no student trustee tonight, so let's go ahead and do board committee reports, starting with Cryerop, which the meeting is tomorrow, so I have no report. We'll go to Compact, and Mrs. Renler, if you want to go ahead and do Compact, Rep, and then Parks and Rec. Okay. Okay.

For Compact, I really don't have anything to report. Their meetings will start at the beginning of next year. And for REP, the meeting's tomorrow night, but I do want to say that we have over 180 students registered for the ACES summer program. And it's about 115 to 140 per week. So I want to thank Cherish Bowman for making this happen for our students the last couple years for our students and their families. So thank you, Cherish. Parks and Rec, there wasn't a quorum, so they've moved the meeting to the 22nd, which is next Thursday.

Mr. O'Neill, do you have anything for Redlands Cultural Arts Commission, TSBA? And Rev, I would imagine not. All right. Moving on to the, I hope I haven't lost anybody out there. It's a long meeting. Moving on to the superintendent's report, Mr. Kelly.

All right, well, members of the board and members of the public, it seems like I was just here for one of my first meetings and it is now my last meeting, but I've truly enjoyed my time here. It's been an absolute honor. I want to say how impressed I was with the celebrations last week and especially our secondary graduations. Very special in the way that the community conducts those, so it was really an honor to be a part of that. The paras tonight who came to speak, I know a number of them have left. And I want to thank them because the work, if you don't know the work that is done, it is important work. Sometimes it's thankless work, but it's very fulfilling work in a lot of different ways. There's a lot of complexities around this pay issue and there's a lot of validity to what's being talked about. School districts and associations negotiate together, and so the district really looks forward to working with RESPA to be able to work through this for the benefit of the students and the employees, and we look forward to that. We have a very special guest here tonight. I know a lot of people are going to be happy to have him here. I'm probably the most happy. And I won't even say anything because that comes up next and I'm not going to steal the board's thunder in regards to that. but as i leave i want to thank the community of redlands it's not a community that i knew well and i really grew to appreciate it and love it and love the people and love the students here you have something very special the quality of programs and offerings that occurs for students is truly exceptional many times you don't understand that if you if because it's what you've always expected or or seen But it doesn't really replicate itself the way that it does here in a lot of other communities. So that's something you should really care for and be very proud of. And it's something very special for students. But it's been an honor. I've just truly enjoyed the people I've come in contact with and I just appreciate the time. Thank you so much.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. We will now continue with the superintendent's recommendations. Tonight we have switched up the agenda to approve our human resources action items first. Dr. Roberts and Phillips, do you have any changes or additions to the human resources action items?

None this evening, thank you.

All right. Okay, consideration and approval of contract of employment for district superintendent. And I get a motion.

So moved.

All right. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Jim. Any discussion?

I'm really excited about having a new superintendent for Redlands Unified School District. I know we're going to do our best to push the envelope to make sure Redlands Unified is recognized as number one in the Inland Empire and number one in the state, then number one in the nation. So you got a lot to do to make sure we get there. I'm really excited to have you come aboard. I don't want to say your name yet because I'll let Melissa officially say it. But I think we're all excited to have you aboard with us.

Concur.

Okay. Government code section 54953C3 requires that before a final vote on the contract for a school district executive, the financial terms of the contract must be orally reported in open session. The proposed contract is for a term of three years plus nine days at an annual salary of $300,000 plus a longevity stipend when applicable. There's a 3% annual minimum salary increase and a one year term extension upon receipt of an above average or better evaluation. The contract provides health and welfare benefits equal to the other certificated management staff with a district contribution of $12,516 and 22 days of annual vacation with a 44 day accrual cap and a five day annual cash out option. The contract includes $400,000 in term life insurance, a transportation allowance of $500 per month, An expense allowance of $400 per month and a paid professional organization memberships. Is there any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Patty?

Patty, what's your vote?

I said aye.

Didn't hear you. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Congratulations, Mr. Juan Cabral. We are very excited to have you join the RUSD team. I see you brought some guests with you tonight. And if you would like to come up to the podium, you're welcome to say a few words.

Selected to lead this wonderful community along with President Ayala Quintero and the board community. I am excited to meet everybody in the next coming months, next coming weeks. Super excited to be here and this is such a wonderful, I got to go to four of the graduations last week. And the amount of tradition, history, and honor that I saw was wonderful. And I look forward to being a part of it. The welcome that I've received also has been second to none, and I greatly appreciate that. I do have with me my wife, who is a teacher, just finished her 27th year teaching. We call her Lavero, but her name is Veronica Cabral, my wife. Want to say hi, Vero? My daughter, Tonansin, we call her Tona. She is a counseling therapist. Her husband, Jacob, he's a teacher. Just finished his sixth year teaching. He's a high school teacher, social studies. And then my son, Amilcar, we call him Micar. He is a substitute teacher right now. He is actually a student at the U of R right here in Redlands, getting his master's and his credential. He's following after my footsteps. Thank you for being here, family. We are all in. We are a family of education. We believe in public education, and we're happy to be here. I cannot wait to get started. Thank you so much, board, for trusting me. We're going to do great work.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bob. Thank you. I apologize for your family having to stay here through this such long meeting, but we really appreciate you guys being here. And we're sorry in advance for all the time we're going to take away from your dad and your husband. But we have complete faith in him, and we know he'll do amazing things here, and we're looking forward to it.

Okay, does anybody else have anything? No.

Okay. All right, we'll move on to item B. Management, approve amendments to contracts of executive cabinet members Jason Hill, Assistant Superintendent Business Services, Kenneth Wagner, Assistant Superintendent Educational Services, and Sabine Robertson Phillips, Assistant Superintendent Human Resources. Extending executive cabinet's contracts through June 30th, 2026 with applicable step increases pursuant to the management team's salary schedule listed on the website. Is there a motion?

Who's to approve? Patty, I heard Patty, so I'll second.

Okay, thank you Patty, thank you Jim. Any discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Thank you Patty. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. We will now move on to consent items under business services. Mr. Hill, do you have any changes or additions?

Thank you President, we have no changes or additions tonight.

Okay, can I get a motion to approve item A, consent items B through Z? So moved. Second. Okay, thank you Alex, thank you Michelle. Any discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you Patty. Chair votes aye, or any opposed, sorry. All right, chair votes aye and so ordered. Up next we have business services action items. Adopt resolution number 37, 2022-23, the education protection account, EPA requirements and spending determinations. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Second. All right, thank you Alex, thank you Jim. Any discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, chair votes aye and so ordered. Approve and adopt the Redlands Unified School District 2023-2024 Local Control and Accountability Plan, LCAP. Can I have a motion? Second. Thank you, Patty. We'll give that one to Alex. Any discussion?

Yeah, I just want to say if any LCAP members are still here, I applaud you. I was on that committee for five years, so I know all the hard work it takes. Thank you for staying with it, and we appreciate you.

I heard it was a great experience for them, and we do appreciate their work very much. It is the core of what we do for our kids, so much appreciated.

All right. I'd like to thank the LCAP committee. For all the time that you give, I know it's a lot, and we really appreciate it. All your hard work, and we look forward to this great year. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Patty. All right, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye, and so ordered. Adopt the annual proposed budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Can I have a motion?

So moved. Okay.

Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to consent items under educational services. Dr. Wagner, do you have any changes or additions?

Thank you, President Ayala-Contero. I have no changes or addition. However, can I comment on the previous one? I just wanted to thank our LCAP committee also. But also, Christy Hubbard for her first time running the LCAP process this year. She did a great job. Three quarters of that committee this year was new for the first time this year, which makes it a little bit more challenging, but also a little bit more fun. And the committee got to grow a lot, and so next year we'll dig in deep to data for our next year's committee.

Awesome, thank you Christy for that. All right, is there a motion to approve item A, consent items B through D?

Moved. I can't. Patty.

All right, thank you Alex, thank you Patty. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye, and so ordered, and we did hear Patty. All right, we're going on to educational services action items. Let's go ahead and take items 16A and 16B together.

Okay, I'll move to approve.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Sorry about that Patty, we heard you. Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to consent items under human resources. Dr. Robertson-Phillips, do you have any changes or additions?

As at your place tonight, please find replacement pages for 17U. Thank you.

Okay. Can I get a motion to approve item A, consent items B through AN with the change to item U?

So moved.

Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye, sorry.

All right, any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. We'll move on. We have no discussion items, so we'll be moving on to the community import portion of the agenda. All right, this is the time that any member of the public may address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education, provided the person submits a completed registration card to the clerk of the board or their designee prior to public participation. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems relating to policy matters will be referred to the superintendents, depending on. on who's sitting at the time. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium slash microphone and announce their name. The chairperson shall limit the amount of time which a member of the public may use in addressing the board to three minutes, unless the chairperson or majority of the board determines that a different time limit is appropriate. Before we get to that, I'm going to go ahead and, let's see. Yeah, well, that's after. Okay. I want to just recognize that we have emails from Nicole McCance and Patty Spitzer. I just want to recognize those before I forget. Our first up is Dr. Wong, followed by Dale Broom.

Thank you very much for allowing me to speak this evening. I'd like to talk a little bit about regrets. Many of us often rely on those who have more knowledge, skills, and experiences, and that's what we call wisdom. Wisdom. dentists, auto mechanics, financial analysts, and certain physicians like oncologists and cardiologists, et cetera. As seasoned adults, how many of you have been counseled by a physician or a dentist? I don't think any of you are my patients, but anyway. So we hear about the dentist saying, avoid sodas and Captain Crunch and Rice Krispies, right? So you don't want to get dental cavities and root canals and dental bills. We say, the doctors say, avoid excess sun because we want to avoid skin cancer, avoid tobacco, lung cancer and heart disease, excessive alcohol, liver disease, avoid sexual promiscuity, HIV, AIDS, STIs. As a knowledgeable and seasoned physician, I often see the end result. I see the bad parts of bad choices. Many, many people regret their choices, especially if the complications are painful and irreversible. Books like Beyond Magenta introduces and encourages the readers into transgenderism and leading them into a developing painful and irreversible complications. Those who push gender affirming surgeries and puberty blockers are no different from big tobacco companies. Ask a person who developed AIDS, having multiple sexual partners, do you really, really think they're taking all those medications, they like doing that and dealing with all the complications and the side effects of medications and the cost of that? Big pharma likes him because he's making a lot of money for them. Do you really think that big tobacco and big pharma and big publishing companies and the so-called surgeons and doctors who push the transgender agenda really have your interests at heart? Or do you think they're in it for the money? They are capitalizing on those of you who choose to ignore the counsel of those who are wise. They are capitalizing on you who choose to be enslaved by big tobacco, big pharma, big publishing companies. They got you suckered. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Up next we have Dale Broom followed by Valerie Rodriguez.

superintendent and school board trustees. My name is Dr. Dale Broom from Redlands and this spring the California legislature tried to pass AB 1078. Some of you may be aware of this. This is a bill that would have banned all local school districts from removing obscene books from libraries without state approval. Fortunately this part of the bill was scrapped uh... do grassroots opposition however the governor newsom recently sent a letter to all the uh... super uh... school district superintendent regarding the removal of uh... school library books and textbooks why to maintain state dictatorial control over the propaganda they want our children to read and secondly to ensure the students are taught a favorable viewpoint toward lgbtq lifestyles even if it exposes children to age inappropriate or sexually graphic material As you know, Awakened Redlands and parent groups all across the nation have been challenging school districts to remove or restrict access to libraries' books that are sexually graphic or promote homosexuality or transgenderism to our children. Why? Because they are not only morally offensive to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but they are some of the most physically and psychologically unhealthy lifestyles, as Dr. Wong pointed out. Now, six of us are going to be reading a legal response letter written by Tracy Henderson Esquire, who's founder of California Parent Union, to counter what the governor said in his recent letter that she received. I'm going to be quoting the letter. It says, June 3, 2023, dear California superintendents, it appears that our California state government is once again attempting to mislead and bully educators, as they did during the COVID pandemic, relating to masks and testing of our youth. As you recall, public health director sent a letter on August 23rd, 2021, which threatened educators that they must mask and test our children or schools could be sued, their school insurance could be canceled, teachers could lose their credentials, crimes could be charged, when in fact these measures were only mere health recommendations. Educators tragically believe the California Department of Public Health lies and unspeakable things happen to our children. So she says in her letter, I now write to provide a reasoned legal brief to help you see through the blatant information and intimidation tactics that the governor is putting forth so that a future similar tragedy will not happen. On June 1st, Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, Superintendent Thurmond wrote a letter relating to the removal of books from the library. The letter hits a few key points that I will address in turn. However, as usual, the state is pushing propaganda and missing the entire point of what parents are actually concerned about. What parents do not want in their schools and books or curriculum, they don't want those books or curriculums that are developmentally inappropriate, We're aimed at over-sexualizing our children. This is not about banning books, but it's about removing porn from our school libraries. So I'm going to go ahead and leave a copy of the governor's letter as well as the response letter to you so you guys can take a look at that. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next is Valerie Rodriguez followed by Karen Herbert.

I'm going to continue where he left off. The Constitution does not restrict banning pornography. The state first makes the point in its June 1st letter that freedom of speech may include controversial, unpopular, or offensive content. It goes on to articulate what we all know, that local educational agencies have broad discretion in the management of school affairs, but it may not ban books because one dislikes the ideas in them. The state cites Board of Education versus PICO, among other cases. This first point exemplifies how out of touch the state is as to what is happening in our schools that concerns parents. What local educational agencies cannot do is push porn or a religion ideology or pedophilia on our children. The same case cited by the state stands for this exact proposition. Book removal or banning does not violate the Constitution, and more precisely, the First Amendment and educators are perfectly within their rights to remove or ban them when they are unsuitable. Quoting Board of Education versus PICO, respondents implicitly concede that an unconstitutional motivation would not be demonstrated if it were shown that petitioners had decided to remove the books at issue because those books were pervasively vulgar. The PICO court goes on to make a very important counterpoint that the state neglected to mention in its letter. Quote, and again, respondents concede that if it were demonstrated that the removal decision was based solely upon the educational suitability of the books in question, then their removal would be perfectly permissible. Obscenity is not within the area of protected speech or press. Quoting Roth versus United States, there are certain well defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene. It has been well observed that such utterances are not an essential part of any exposition of ideas and are such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. We, the parents, want all references to obscene material hidden under the guise of social studies or whatever doublespeak the state is using out of our schools.

Thank you. Up next, we have Karen Herbert followed by Rachel Ugly. Sorry if I messed that up.

Hello, I'm Karen Herbert. California Education Code does not supersede California Penal Code, which makes distribution of pornography to minors a crime. The state next pushes the idea that California educators must provide a representative social science curriculum, cannot present discriminatory content, and then takes the illogical leap to contend that removing books could amount to discrimination. The state then has the audacity to threaten local education agencies with the Office of the Attorney General and encourage people to file discrimination complaints with their local education agencies and even appeal to the CDE. This bastardization of the laws explaining what rises to the level of discrimination of discrimination and it's a patent abuse of power and a blatant intimidation tactic. Parents have every right to inquire what their children are being taught and raise objections as to what is not appropriate from their perspective. To be clear, all that has happened in the law in relation to gender identity is that another protected class has been added to the already in place laws against discrimination. Like the other protected classes enumerated in California statutes, such as religion or race, in order for one to act in a manner that rises to the level of actionable discrimination, certain facts must exist. For example, to prevail on a claim under Education Code 220 for peer sexual orientation harassment, a plaintiff must show he or she suffered severe, pervasive, and offensive harassment that effectively deprived the plaintiff of the right of equal access to educational benefits and opportunities. Number two, the school district had actual knowledge of that harassment. And number three, the school district acted with deliberate indifference in the face of such knowledge. And that was the case of Donovan v. Poway Unified School District. Thank you.

Thank you. Rachel, I'm sorry, Ugly? No, you did it right. Okay. Thank you. And then, just one second, and after is Douglas Houser? My apologies, go ahead.

No, you're right. Thank you. I continue to read from the California Parents Union legal letter written by Tracy Henderson Esquire. Whether gender-oriented conduct rises to the level of actual harassment thus depends on the consolation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships. ONCAL versus Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., Circumstances, Expenditures, and Relationships, including but not limited to the ages of the harasser and the victims and the number of individuals involved. COCRT Title IX Guidelines 12041-12042. The damages are not available to simply act of teasing and name-calling among school children. Even though where there are comments, larger differences in gender, rather in the context of student on one student harassment, damages are available only with the behavior is so severe, pervasive. and objectively offensive that it denies the victims the equal access of education of Title IX is designed to protect Davis versus Monroe County Board of Education. This means one must engage in behavior that actually rises to the level of discrimination. This does not mean Removing or banning porn from the libraries equates to discrimination. Nowhere in the state letters to all educators or In the California Department of Education recent publication on removal of instructional materials, does it address the fact that porn is in our school libraries, which is against the law? Thank you.

Thank you. Up next we have Douglas Hauser followed by Jeanette Wilson.

Thank you very much. To continue the letter. Our penal code carries very stiff penalties for the use of lewd materials when it comes to minors. Obscene matter means matter taken as a whole that to the average person applying contemporary statewide standards appeals to the prurient interest that taken as a whole depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way and that taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. California Penal Code 311. Material that is obscene or incites pupils as to create a clear and present danger is prohibited. California Education Code 48907. Every person who publishes, possesses, or prints material knowing that the matter depicts a person under the age of 18 years personally engaging in or personally simulating sexual conduct violates California Penal Code 311.1. A person is guilty of sexual exploitation of a child if he or she knowingly duplicates prints or exchanges any representation of information that depicts a person under the age of 18 years engaged in an act of sexual conduct. California Penal Code 311.3. And if you commit criminal violations and use obscene or harmful matter to induce, persuade, or encourage the minor to engage in a lewd or lascivious act, your penalties can be more serious. These are just some of California's laws against obscenity. Is porn in our classrooms or libraries? Absolutely. The following excerpt is taken from a book called The Bluest Eye, which a Roseville area school district recently tried to justify by comparing it to Romeo and Juliet because of the suicide scene. I'm going to take a deep breath, and I'm going to read this. The little girls are the only things I'll miss. Do you know that when I touched their sturdy little tits and bit them just a little, I felt I was being friendly? I didn't want to kiss their mouths or sleep in the bed with them or take a child bride for my own. Playful, I felt, and friendly. Two of them, Doreen and Sugar Babe, they'd come together. I gave them mints, money, and they'd eat ice cream with their legs open while I played with them. It was like a party. And there wasn't nastiness, and there wasn't any filth, and there wasn't any odor, and there wasn't any groaning, just the light white laughter of little girls and me. And there wasn't any look, any long funny look, any long funny Velma look afterward. No look that makes you feel dirty afterward, that makes you want to die. With little girls, it is all clean and good and friendly. That was hard to read. I would hope that nobody on this board would think that that is appropriate for school kids to read.

All right, thank you, Mr. Hauser. Up next we have Jeanette Wilson, followed by Joshua, I'm sorry, Hall. Hall, I'm not sure.

Good evening, board. And to end the letter, it's a long letter, but very important. What Tracy goes on to say is what the state should be encouraging is parents to file complaints with licensing agencies against anyone who violates the law by serving obscene material to minors. This includes not only the lewd books in our libraries, but everything else that is aimed at normalizing sexual acts in our schools involving minors. In sum, the state's clear threat and intimidation tactic under the guise of a demand for information regarding book removals or banning books is unfounded. If you as a local educational agency act constitutionally, you know inappropriate material when you see it or hear it. And if you cannot tell, then ask the parents what they find appropriate and stop participating in the most recent political fads. Get back to basics. Whatever you decide to do, understand that the state's letter is aimed at doing their best to confuse, mislead, and threaten and intimidate you into believing you have no choice. However, I am here to tell you, you do. Please make the right choice for our kids. Get the porn out. Sincerely, Tracy L. Henderson, founder, California Parents Union. And I would like to add, if you could please note the excerpt that Doug Hauser just read. This is on the recommended reading list for Redlands School District for AP Literature. Pardon me? I don't know what that was. So that's on the recommended reading list. And I feel that based on the Newsom's letter to the school administrators and then Tracy's input, It makes our recommendation to have a committee that includes parents and community members even a better idea, because then you would have something to show the state if you needed to on why you banned a book. You would have more transparency, and you could show them that it wasn't even just you. It was community members and parents, which is what the penal code speaks to. in terms of determining pornography, that you not just have administrators' input, but you have the general community. So I just wanted to point out, I think that would help the school district in the long run to have such a committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Next up, I'm not sure if it's Joshua Hall or Hall, followed by Greg Britton.

So I'd just like to point out that Transgender queer theory is a Marxist scam. Dr. Wong said that it's driven primarily by profit motive. That's only an afterthought. I would also like to say that the entire LGBTQ plus community is a Marxist scam. Gay marriage was a scam to overthrow society by dissolving marriage in the family unit. Transgenderism is an attack on both male and female genders, man and woman, and it's the children who suffer the most. We have a free-falling sperm infertility rate that's been ongoing since 1965 when sperm rates started falling, and the rise in homosexual behavior and transgenderism only compounds the problem. If profit was the only consideration in regards to genderqueer theory, don't you think that Hollywood and all these major corporations would ditch it by now? Hollywood is losing billions of dollars on all their movies and TV shows. Target has lost billions in their stock shares since they announced their Pride line. And yet they still continue doing it. Why? They are driven by ideology, a Marxist ideology, to overthrow the United States government and the West and usher in a Marxist utopia in the image of the LGBTQ plus community. Profit is an afterthought. transgenderism and homosexual behavior, the ultimate goal is to depopulate the human race, mostly America and the West, but eventually the whole world, which is why the United States is trying to push the LGBTQ plus agenda on Africa and the Middle East, and they're rejecting it because they realize it's an attempt to depopulate their countries. We need to get rid of the LGBTQ plus ideology. It is dangerous to children. It is dangerous to everyone. Transgender surgery should not be available to anyone, especially children, but should not be available to anyone. Laws of consent be damned. Transgender surgeries, they violate the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath that all doctors take when they become doctors is first do no harm. I would also like to say that The biggest push behind transgenderism is to sterilize children. 25% of Gen Zers identify as LGBTQ+. 8% of millennials identify as that community. 4% of baby boomers identify as LGBTQ+. And 0.2% of the generation before baby boomers identify as LGBTQ+. This is an agenda driven by the media.

Thank you. Thank you. Our last speaker of the evening is Greg Britton.

Evening. Before I turn to my main topic, you were patting yourselves on the back about your surveys and how wonderful we are. Let us remind everyone that meeting the state standards, and this may be one of the better districts, but only 51% are proficient in English language arts, 35% in math, and 36% in science. If a student took a test and got 50% of the questions right, or 35% of the questions right, what grade would they get? When I was growing up, they'd get an F. And we've talked about this, and I see no urgency up here in addressing what you really should be doing in teaching these things to the children and improving these lousy scores. Now, main topic. All across the country, really in the last three years, maybe five years, we see almost everywhere this agenda to sexualize children from their earliest age. Doug Houser read an excerpt. Recently, a couple other excerpts came to light here in Southern California. One, a teacher was on video explaining to her students how to pleasure the booty hole. In another one, a mother goes to the school board and complains about an assignment her daughter was given. It was a random sexual encounter between two men in the park where one says to the other, F me, hurt me, make me bleed. Now, we've brought this to the board's attention since last fall. And no one up there really seems interested. And I'm puzzled to understand that. Because I can't believe that you probably had children, maybe grandchildren now, think that that's right, but you remain silent. Why? And that isn't really human nature, is to go along to get along, to follow the crowd, to not stand up and say what's right and what's wrong. It's the rare person who sees something that's wrong when everyone else is doing something to the contrary and says, no, that's not right. Damn the consequences to me, that is not right. Martin Luther King said, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular. He must do it because his conscience tells him it is right. And I call upon this board to start doing what is right in seeing that these improper materials are not presented to our children. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, I seem to have missed a step at some point, and we are going to do a readout of our closed session. In regard to the public employee appointment part of the agenda, I would like to report the following. In closed session, the board took action to appoint Devin Darby Von, I knew I was going to do this. Devon Darby Von Schweikert to the position of coordinator one special education legal analyst effective July 1, 2023 at step one of the management team salary schedule with the following vote. Ayala Quintero, Hollahan, O'Neal, Rendler, Vara voting aye. Okay, so Devon Darby Von Schweikert, are you present tonight? Okay, would you go ahead and stand for us? WELCOME. DID YOU BRING ANYBODY WITH YOU TONIGHT? I JUST LOVE THIS COMMUNITY SO MUCH.

PRIOR TO TODAY, I THINK I WOULD HAVE SAID IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS WORKING FOR THE DISTRICT, BOY, I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

Awesome, thank you. All right, our next one. In closed session, the board took action to appoint Ashley Palmer to the position of Credential Specialist effective July 1, 2023 at step five of the management team salary schedule with the following vote. Ayala Quintero, Hollahan, O'Neal, Rendler, Vara voting aye. And Ashley, are you here?

Yay.

Do you have any family with you tonight? Welcome, thank you. Thank you guys for being here tonight. Okay, now that I got that out of the way, we are on to board member comments. We're going to start down here with Jim.

It's a late night. Everybody have a nice summer.

Love that report. Mrs. Rundler? No, go ahead.

I don't care that it's a late night, I got stuff to say. Okay, first of all I want to congratulate all our middle school basketball players. I hope you all had a great time and we'll try it again next year. Great job to Beatty, their seventh and eighth grade teams took the first place title for both boys and girls teams. Way to go Bobcats. Clement also won the title for sixth grade in both boys and girls. Great job Vikings. I was honored to attend the Salute to Our Heroes program by the first graders at Franklin. What an uplifting morning that was. The students did a wonderful job, and there were three veterans in attendance, which was really special. They were very honored to be included. I also got to see a play at Franklin called Rumble in the Jungle by the second grade classes of Mrs. Rascone and Mrs. Brooks. Thank you for what a fun time singing the songs. It was really fun. I enjoyed both performances. Steaming through the states was amazing. The fifth grade students at Mariposa took steam to a whole new level. Who knew that state reports could be so much fun? I sure wish my children and I had benefited from this kind of technology when we were in fifth grade, this innovative way of learning. Thank you, Mrs. Gonzalez, Ms. Scallion, Scanlan, I'm sorry, and Mrs. Jimenez for your help with the students teaching them this new way of learning that's fun and engaging. I had the privilege of attending the Ethnic News Journalism Banquet. What a fun evening celebrating these young journalists from Orangewood, CV, and Rev. The amazing talents of many students were highlighted by their teacher and advisor, Vanessa Aranda. And I hope it's okay with all of you. I asked them that we be included in their newspaper distribution next year. Their stories and articles are well written and thought provoking. And the frozen custard that night wasn't so bad either. Once again, I was able to attend all the awards nights. They were awe inspiring and enjoyable. I did miss REVS this year because my husband Dan and I were presenting a scholarship in memory of my father, who was a teacher for over 40 years at Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles. And our graduations were all very beautiful this year, with each one being very unique. I was quite impressed by the student speakers, the choirs, the bands, the orchestras. I especially enjoyed hearing Mr. McGrath, a teacher at Citrus Valley, break into song with the James Taylor song, Secret of Life. He did a really amazing job. And I want to thank Christine, Karen, and Rebecca for all the work that they do, taking pictures and writing articles and stuff for our schools about all the great things our students are doing. I'm happy I was able to attend the administrative events yesterday and today. To all our administrators in the district, from our principals and VPs to administrators who lead the work in other areas throughout the district like Betty. A huge thank you for your fabulous work and sometimes difficult. You do a lot. Thank you so much. And I want to also thank Pat Kelly for being here these last few months. I've really learned a lot from him. He has helped me in a lot of ways. So thank you so much. A special message to Scott Bolander. Prayers and best wishes from my family to you for a quick recovery and that you have a healthy and great summer. We'll see you soon. I also wish all of our families and employees a safe and restful summer. So thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mrs. Rundler. Patty, do you have anything?

Briefly, it's been a long night. I just want to say thank you to Mr. Kelly and welcome to Mr. Juan Cabral to the Redlands Unified School District family. We look forward to working with you. And then just wishing everyone a wonderful summer. Those of you who can get a break, it'd be great. Connect with your families, and we'll see you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.

All right. Thank you. Alex, do you have anything?

I just have a couple of comments and a couple of questions. I just want to thank the paraprofessionals coming to speak, and I know it wasn't easy for you to come and speak to us. And I just had a couple of questions for Sabine. Are the majority of the paraprofessionals all day or three hours, or is it split?

It depends on if they're elementary, middle, or high. So they're either six, six and a quarter, or six and a half. And then depending on the IEPs, there may be some that are seven.

Okay, so we've already gone from eliminating the three hour positions to giving them six, six and a half, seven.

We haven't had three hours in a long time.

Okay, just wanted to double check. All right, that was it.

Okay. I want to thank everybody for their hard work in all the graduations. It really was, they were amazing. And if people haven't gotten a chance to tune into those, if you ever get the chance to, I suggest, they're long, but they're something to see. They're pretty amazing. I think that's it other than I want to thank Pat for his time here. It's been wonderful and I'm very excited for Juan to come on and everybody have a good summer except to those who are in credit recovery or in credit advancement. My son is one of them. He's doing advancement. And I know it's not ideal, but you guys got to hang in there. So, all right. I will adjourn this meeting at 922. Have a good night and safe drive, everyone. Thank you.